Second Test

Plunkett added to England injury list

Liam Plunkett will today be ruled out of England's next two Tests against Pakistan - and possibly for the rest of the summer series - because of the side strain that he sustained while bowling for Durham against West Indies A at Chester-le-Street last week.

Durham regard Plunkett's absence as inevitable but the final assessment must come from the England medical staff and the decision will be made only after the squad report to Old Trafford this morning for the second Test, which begins on Thursday.

Plunkett, who won the first of his six Test caps in Lahore last winter, has been below his best this summer and bowled without consistency in the first Test at Lord's. He was playing against West Indies A, however, primarily as a batsman, to try to find the form to justify his inclusion at No8 in the Old Trafford line-up.

But he broke down in only his seventh over, a setback that continues England's woeful luck with injuries, which sees the third-choice captain Andrew Strauss lead a side bearing increasingly limited resemblance to that which won the Ashes last summer.

Plunkett might have been bereft of runs - he averages only 8.62 in his six Tests - but at least he is theoretically an England No8, which is a reputation that his likely replacement Sajid Mahmood, on his home ground, has yet to gain.

With the wicketkeeper Geraint Jones's form with the bat also absent, England's coach Duncan Fletcher will present evidence for the inclusion of Jamie Dalrymple, the Middlesex all-rounder, ahead of Northamptonshire's specialist slow left-armer Monty Panesar.

For Dalrymple to make his debut at No6, to the exclusion of Warwickshire's Ian Bell, who made a century at Lord's, seems a gamble that England will not seriously consider.

Pakistan have worries of their own. Abdul Razzaq will net today to discover whether he has shaken off the back trouble that afflicted him in the later stages of the drawn first Test at Lord's.